2014 Poem of the Year: “A Moment in a Room”

Of course yours truly "achange" has not read a thousandth of the poems published this year, and this poem I submit below as poem of the year doesn't even come from 2014.

But it's great, it's by Tennessee Williams, and it's never been published before, I don't believe. It comes from a magisterial biography of this great writer with an absurdly dramatic life. (The book's by the great critic John Lahr and it's called Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrammage of the Flesh.) 

Most important, the poem's a beaut, about the love of Williams' life, Frank Merlo. From l952:

A Moment in a Room

Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear,
the tender ones are those
we fold away.

And so I watch you quietly
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.

I could but do not break
a thing so still,
in which almost a whisper
would be shrill…

For time's not cheated by
a moment's quiet,
the heart beats echo to
eternal riot…

But while it waits, I speak not
false to you,
something unspoken in 
this room is true,

And still it goes as though
it longed to stay,
this tender moment we
must fold away.